The biggest waste in the game is Deoxys-A, who drops from a BST of 600 to an effective BST of 420.

Next is Aegislash-Blade, who goes from 520 to 370.

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Originally Posted by Doppleganger

Outside of very case-specific situations (like Nidoking), most Pokemon run either a physical or a special set, and don't attempt to run mixed. You don't run mixed because you can't EV train for both offensive stats AND speed, while another team member probably specializes in the category you didn't, so running a subpar mixed stat has the opportunity cost of a utility or coverage move.

Okay, so, here's your problem. You're right that mixed is a lot less common than SpAtk-only, Atk-only, or defensive builds ... but you're taking that correct general rule and stretching it too far. A lot of the Pokémon you're listing off in your newest list can and do run mixed builds, but Deoxys-A and Aegislash are especially egregious inclusions on your list.

Deoxys-A: This Pokémon is a pretty good poster child for scenarios where your Atk, SpAtk, and Speed are all so egregiously high that you really ought to be maxing out Atk/SpAtk (pick one) and Speed but then you also want to be using the neglected of the two offensive stats too because it helps you handle chump defensive switch-ins meant to force you out.

As you can see, it's a SpAtk-leaning Deoxys with three special attack moves and ~all EVs poured into SpAtk and Speed. So far, so normal. But notice something else? His nature is Rash, not Modest or Timid. He has Superpower, a strong physical move. And his final 4 EVs? They were placed in Atk, not any of the three remaining (defensive) stats. That's because this particular Deoxys-A build focuses on primarily being a special attacker but not getting walled by the likes of Chansey/Blissey either. Deo-A's Attack stat is already so high that you don't really need to worry (that much) about the lack of EV investment or lack of stat promotion via Nature -- it's still high enough that, so long as it's not being impeded, it's going to do plenty of damage to things that can't shrug off Fighting-type physical moves.

Aegislash: This guy shouldn't be on your list at all. All three builds -- dedicated physical, dedicated special, and mixed -- are common, and once again the top recommendation out of both Smogon and VGC calls for a mixed set:

Notice how the Smogon set advises Gyro Ball (Steel Physical) and Shadow Ball (Ghost Special). Notice how the VGC set advises Shadow Ball (Ghost Special), Flash Cannon (Steel Special), and pinch Shadow Sneak (Ghost Physical). Sassy and Quiet natures, because 1) fuck Speed and 2) fuck hurting any of your four other promotable stats here. Sassy on the Smogon set because it's a defensive build; Quiet on the VGC set because it's an offensive build.

You'll find popular physical-only and special-only sets in both the XYORAS and SMUSUM eras, first of which is that very VGC2018 set we just posted (which, if you opt for Wide Guard over Shadow Sneak, immediately becomes a purely special attacking set). But notice how the mixed set is by no means excluded from consideration. How it is, in fact, foremost in Smogon's consideration. And that again is because we have to consider the opponent merely switching out their active Pokémon for a choice answer to our selected attacking stat. "Oh, your Aegislash is purely special? Say hello to Blissey." "Oh, your Aegislash is purely physical? Say hello to (whatever is most relevant right now in Gen 7)." Of course there are also walls with mixed coverage, like Toxapex and Celesteela, but our consideration right now is how you can best give yourself an advantage / how you can best remove yourself from a position of disadvantage. And with Aegislash, going mixed is a perfectly valid approach. You're not using Speed anyway. So you may as well make Speed the damaged stat, leave Atk/SpAtk alone, and then primarily strike foes with one of the two stats while secondarily striking them with the other.

To be clear, Shadow Sneak on VGC Aegislash is much more about picking off Pokémon who just barely avoided being KO'd last turn and is much less about actually doing any significant physical damage. But again, we have Smogon's truly mixed set in Gyro Ball and Shadow Ball, so ...

tl;dr your investigation is coming from a good place and there are definitely tons of Pokémon with dead-weight base stats, but you have to be careful not to generalize that Pokémon with super high Atk and SpAtk stats are always packing dead weight. Because there are Pokémon who run mixed sets. And some of them do so precisely because of their naturally high Atk and SpAtk base stats. Stats so high they can't be rightly ignored.

I did make a disclaimer that there were going to be Pokemon that bucked the trend, and you'd expect them at either end of the chart. For Deoxys, its stats are so high it can lower its Attack and still do huge damage to the Special walls, and for Aegislash it doesn't follow convention either because of King's Shield and Stance Change.

In fact, Aegislash-S is very efficient, at a 9.6% waste.

On the other side, you see Blissey, Chansey and Shuckle as the most efficient Pokemon, considering their low attack/special attack stats. This lends them to being walls. But what I hope to find are not the weird Pokemon like that, but rather those who have proper min/maxed stats.

Mega Heracross was one, but here's another:

Beedrill-Mega - 3.0%

I suspect the reason these two megas are listed is, the Mega Evolution only boosted one attacking stat, which gives them the unique attribute of having both a high BST and a high adjusted BST. Although neither touches 600 BST.

Many Megas seem to fit this trend too, including Latias-M (14.3%) and Tyranitar-M (13.6%).

The overall average is 14.1% waste. So which is the most powerful Pokemon, that doesn't transform, who is also above-average in efficiency?

WHEW. The list is even larger >400 but beyond that I think you get into noise territory (where BST is so small, Pokemon seem efficient when they're so weak it doesn't matter). I feel like this captures close to the bell curve. So analysis!

1. Gengar, Heracross, and Alakazam were already quite efficient before getting their Mega Evolutions, and those Megas just increased efficiency. They were highly specialized as Special Attackers and Physical Attackers, but if the Megas weren't even more efficient, they wouldn't have seen a change.
2. The Ulta Beasts are min/maxed to heck. This is pretty obvious if you look at their stats, but Pheromosa is absent, due to her Deoxys-like distribution. Unlike Deoxys, she doesn't have the typing, ability, priority or high overall BST to get away with those stats, so she's unviable in Ubers.
3. Uxie is an unexpected name I don't know a lot about.
4. The list tends to learn more heavily toward older generations.
5. Some very interesting Pokemon just missed the cutoff, like Slaking, Serperior, Torterra and Starmie

Rayquaza was wasteful before Mega Evolving (22%) and its Mega Evolved state is more or less the same. While, Kyogre and Groudon were surprisingly efficient (14.9) and remained so even after Primal Reversion.

Unless you count the Megas, there's much less representation in later gens.

So I think everyone is familiar with this analysis which attempts to capture the best defensive type combination in Pokemon. This was based off an older discussion that also looked at the best offensive type. However, I've noticed a limitation not already mentioned in the disclaimer. Let's look at the breakdown of the bests offensive types:

Maybe it's apparent now, but the type combo of Fire/Ground listed doesn't actually give 9 super effective types, because Steel is weak to both Fire and Ground. If you're running both types as STAB coverage (a fair assumption), there's little added benefit from hitting Steel with both types. I guess, if you ran out of PP, but that's not what you plan for in battle. For this same reason, Ground/Fighting isn't that good due to the redundancy of Rock, Steel coverage.

So actually, Ice/Fighting should be a lot higher, as it's super effective against 9 unique types (tied with Ice/Ground) and ineffective against one type (Ghost). Ice/Steel is also ranked too low, as it's super effective against 7 unique types but also no Pokemon are immune to both.

It's interesting to me that Gen VII introduced two Pokemon lines of these types - Alolan Sand(shrew)slash and Crab(rawler)ominable, but they're so weak the offensive prowess goes to waste.

That said, the ultimate conclusion of the study - that Steel/Fairy is the best type - hasn't changed. Any future Pokemon boss needs that typing because it's extremely overpowered:

Going in I thought Aegislash would have the best defensive typing, but Ghost's immunities play differently because Normal-Ghost cannot hit one another. Really, the only thing holding Magearna back is her ability.

Is the ability really that good? My impression with Moxie-type abilities is they're best used on fast Pokemon, although I guess that does tie in to the low speed. Still, both Magearna and her fire counterpart Heatran are pretty efficient at their stat spreads (15.8% and 15.0% respectively - within 1 SD of average) but Hetran's ability offers more utility, especially against opposing Heatran.

As for a ban, no OU Pokemon is under suspect right now, not even this guy:

Landorus-Therian - 49.06947%

There's been a lot of grumbling about Lando-T for this very reason, and I think the Smogon council came out and said they're not going to suspect him regardless of usage. I don't know too much about the politics involved, and I have my own suspicions, but I don't think the council wants to deviate too far from VGC anymore, and Lando-T is the dominant force in Japan's VGC due to Intimidate.

As an aside, Incineroar also spiked in usage due to Intimidate. Yet, in spite of Lando-T, Incineroar and Charizard Y at the top of usage, I don't see the special-hitting Ash-Greninja anywhere...

Is the ability really that good? My impression with Moxie-type abilities is they're best used on fast Pokemon, although I guess that does tie in to the low speed. Still, both Magearna and her fire counterpart Heatran are pretty efficient at their stat spreads (15.8% and 15.0% respectively - within 1 SD of average) but Hetran's ability offers more utility, especially against opposing Heatran.

As for a ban, no OU Pokemon is under suspect right now, not even this guy:

Landorus-Therian - 49.06947%

There's been a lot of grumbling about Lando-T for this very reason, and I think the Smogon council came out and said they're not going to suspect him regardless of usage. I don't know too much about the politics involved, and I have my own suspicions, but I don't think the council wants to deviate too far from VGC anymore, and Lando-T is the dominant force in Japan's VGC due to Intimidate.

As an aside, Incineroar also spiked in usage due to Intimidate. Yet, in spite of Lando-T, Incineroar and Charizard Y at the top of usage, I don't see the special-hitting Ash-Greninja anywhere...

I don't think OU actually cares at all about what happens in VGC, TDK just doesn't want to admit when he has a flaming dumpster fire of a metagame where one Pokemon is clearly at the very minimum overcentralizing to a very extreme amount and yet he wants to do nothing about it. Aegislash never hit these levels of usage and yet it was hated for being overcentralizing. I genuinely don't think there is any consistency in suspect policy in the OU Council right now, and that's a shame even compared to Gen VI. But I think this falls on the shoulders of OU's current leadership, and their stubborn refusal to want to do anything about something that is clearly unhealthy in their meta is insane.

On the Ash Greninja point, normal Battle Bond Greninja loses super hard to Mega Charizard Y thanks to Drought and Solar Beam. There's probably other Pokemon that are responsible for this as well, since this inherent flaw to Battle Bond Greninja was always why it was a cleaner.

I don't think OU actually cares at all about what happens in VGC, TDK just doesn't want to admit when he has a flaming dumpster fire of a metagame where one Pokemon is clearly at the very minimum overcentralizing to a very extreme amount and yet he wants to do nothing about it. Aegislash never hit these levels of usage and yet it was hated for being overcentralizing. I genuinely don't think there is any consistency in suspect policy in the OU Council right now, and that's a shame even compared to Gen VI. But I think this falls on the shoulders of OU's current leadership, and their stubborn refusal to want to do anything about something that is clearly unhealthy in their meta is insane.

I don't know too much about the politics because a lot of stuff gets pruned, and depending on where you go you tend to get very biased opinions. By any chance, do you know what happened from Gen V until now that has upset Smogon in such a way? Consistency is a good point - like, Aegislash has been OU tested three times - in XY, ORAS, and SM - and I think in the most recent voting it wasn't very convincing. Greninja had a very flimsy ban that I'm sure happened during ORAS. There was also weird stuff like having Marshadow work its way into Ubers, but never testing Reshiram despite the presence of the Tapus and powerful OU dragons like Naganadel (who then got banned) or Kyurem-B.

Speed Boost as an ability isn't banned, while Shadow Tag is. Why is this important? Because Blaziken is banned solely due to Speed Boost, making even Blaze variants illegal. However, Wobbuffet with Telepathy is legal to use. It's contradictory and only makes sense if you say Shadow Tag is no longer unique to Wobbuffet and Speed Boost is a "complex ban"...which it really isn't.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Emi

On the Ash Greninja point, normal Battle Bond Greninja loses super hard to Mega Charizard Y thanks to Drought and Solar Beam. There's probably other Pokemon that are responsible for this as well, since this inherent flaw to Battle Bond Greninja was always why it was a cleaner.

Just playing around with the calculator, I can see how MCY has the advantage, but this isn't Desolate Land territory - one would think there's opportunity for such a popular Pokemon to get an edge. That said, here's the VGC usage and it's something of a mixed bag. I only see Fini and Zapdos as clear checks. Everything else looks like potential prey: three Psychics, two Fire, a Ground and a Rock. Tapu Koko is outsped and OHKO'd by Hydro Pump. Almost anything should die to a Hydro Vortex or a Black Hole Eclipse.

Does Tapu Koko outspeed before Greninja form changes? That's a big deal.

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Consistency is a good point - like, Aegislash has been OU tested three times - in XY, ORAS, and SM - and I think in the most recent voting it wasn't very convincing.

"waaa I don't like getting better at this game let's just ban this pokemon I can't play around because we've banned it before isn't it inevitable"

I don't usually buy into the FW rhetoric, but it was really strong this suspect. There was a lot of "well it was banned before, so what's the point of bringing it back" and of course the completely laughable 50/50 argument.

Quote:

Speed Boost as an ability isn't banned, while Shadow Tag is. Why is this important? Because Blaziken is banned solely due to Speed Boost, making even Blaze variants illegal. However, Wobbuffet with Telepathy is legal to use. It's contradictory and only makes sense if you say Shadow Tag is no longer unique to Wobbuffet and Speed Boost is a "complex ban"...which it really isn't.

B-but think of Ninjask? Scolipede? What? We banned Baton Pass, the true problem with the metagame. Speed Boost had nothing to do with it. Nasty Plot Celebi was broken, you see.